Aggie Agenda 87 - Department of Soil and Crop Sciences

AGGIE
agenda
Department of Soil and Crop Sciences
In this issue
Department Head
Notes
Sympathy
Awards
Aggie Turf Club Update
Plant Breeding
Symposium
Calendar
Seminar Invitation
op Sci
Cr
ces
en
Soil &
Google Scholar Profile
Hopefully with this last cold snap we will have the majority of
winter behind us. Daylight Savings time begins on March 8th,
so don’t forget to turn back your clocks next week!
Our thoughts are with Steve Hague whose mother passed
away in February, and with the family and friends of Jim
McAfee who we lost on January 31st. Jim’s service to the
department and in the turfgrass industry will leave a lasting
impact. He will certainly be missed.
Our students and faculty continue to be recognized for their
exemplary work and contributions. Congratulations to Dr.
Ed Runge for his 50 years of membership in the American
Association for the Advancement of Science. Dr. Muthu
Bagavathiannan was recently named an Outstanding
Reviewer by the Weed Science Society of America. Three of
our students placed first, second, and third at the Soil Survey
and Land Resource Workshop competition. The Aggie Turf
Club represented the department at the Sports Managers Turf
Association Conference in Denver, and finished strong among
75 teams at the John Deere Collegiate Turf Bowl Competition
at the GCSAA Golf Industry Show in San Antonio.
Our first ever Plant Breeding Symposium was a real hit and
garnered hundreds of attendees, as well as global attendance
due to its live-streaming webinar. Noted speakers included
Michael Gore, associate professor of molecular breeding and
T A
M U
February/March 2015
(continued next page)
soilcrop.tamu.edu
(continued from first page)
genetics for nutritional quality and international professor of plant breeding and
genetics at Cornell University, our own Dr. Russell Jessup, Fred Gmitter of the
University of Florida, Les Kuhlman from DuPont Pioneer, and Jianming Yu,
Pioneer Distinguished Chair in Maize Breeding and associate professor in the
Department of Agronomy, Iowa State University. Yan Yang and Silvano Ocheya
were chosen as speakers and Smit Dhakal won first place in the poster
session for the graduate research competition. All three got the top award in
this symposium.
The Symposium attracted attention from many Texas A&M and local news
outlets. A big thank you to everyone who helped organize and staff the event.
We have a great seminar planned for Thursday, March 5 by Endang
Septiningsih. It will be held at 10 a.m. in Heep 440.
We continue to work with several companies. We have had visits from Scotts/
JMC team, Bayer Wheat team and visits to Climate Corp are just a few of our
recent highlights.
Please read over how to create a Google Scholar profile. The steps are listed
at the end of the newsletter.
Thanks to everyone for getting your information in and scheduling your annual
reviews. If you haven’t turned in or scheduled your review, please do so as
soon as possible. I am in Corpus Christi and Weslaco this week and Lubbock
the week of March 23rd.
Sympathy
Please keep Dr. Steve Hague and family in your thought and prayers as they mourn
the loss of his mother – Mrs. Marjorie Hague. Mrs. Hague passed away on February
18th. Funeral services were held Saturday, February 21 @ 2:00 p.m. at Auld Funeral
Home in Archer City, Texas.
Please keep the family and friends of Dr. Jim McAfee in your thoughts and prayers.
Dr. McAfee passed away on January 31st after a lengthy battle with pulmonary
fibrosis.
James Andrew McAfee, born January 22nd, 1945 in Edinburg Texas, passed
away January 31st, 2015 in Richardson, Texas. He was preceded in death by
his father, Thomas Edison McAfee and mother Catheryne McAfee; sister, Nancy
Adams; and nephew, John Thornton. He is survived by his wife of 47 years, Kayla
McAfee of Richardson, Texas; son, Thomas McAfee and wife Jewell McAfee and
their sons Steffen, Dylan and Brandon, all of San Antonio; son, Alan McAfee and
wife Stephanie McAfee and their son Carson, of Garland; son, Eric McAfee of
Richardson, Texas; sister, Virginia “Ginny” Pittman of College Station; niece, Peggy
Frisbie of Harleysville, PA; and nephew, Doug Thornton of College Station; as well as
numerous other family and friends.
He received his Bachelor and Master Degrees from Texas A&M University, his PhD
from Purdue University specializing in Turfgrass Sciences. He worked for 40 years in
the turfgrass industry, finishing his career as an Associate Professor and Turfgrass
Specialist with the Texas AgriLife Extension and Research Center in Dallas Texas.
Throughout his career he received numerous awards and recognitions for his
knowledge, service and contributions to his field. He was a member of numerous
professional organizations, including Texas Turfgrass Association and Sports Turf
Managers Association.
In lieu of flowers, family requests contributions to be made in his memory to the
McAfee Memorial Scholarship at Texas A&M University. Checks should be made
payable to the Texas A&M Foundation and mailed to 401 George Bush Dr., College
Station, TX 77840. Please note on your check “In memory of Dr. James A. McAfee
’67.
Congratulations!
Congratulations to Dr. Edward Runge for
his 50 years of membership in the American
Association for the Advancement of Science!
For 20 years he served as Secretary of the
Agriculture, Food and Renewable Resources
section.
Congratulations to Dr. Muthu Bagavathiannan for being
named an Oustanding Reviewer by the Weed Science
Society of America!
Muthu Bagavathiannan, Ph.D., an assistant professor
at Texas A&M University, College Station. His research
focuses on the evolutionary biology of herbicide resistance
in weeds and on how to develop integrated resistance
management solutions. Bagavathiannan also uses
simulation modeling and information technology tools
to guide informed decision making by growers. He has
authored or coauthored more than 25 peer-reviewed
journal articles, two book chapters and three extension
fact sheets, and he has presented his research at both
national and international meetings. He currently serves
on three WSSA committees and is WSSA’s liaison to the
Crop Science Society of America.
Congratulations to master’s student Smit Dhakal for receiving
first place at the Texas A&M Plant Breeding Symposium poster
competition!
Dhakal is working with the AgriLife Research wheat genetics
program at Amarillo for his thesis research under the
supervision of Dr. Shuyu Liu. Liu said they have developed a
new protocol and screened a mapping population, segregating
for wheat curl mite resistance, using a wheat curl mite
collection maintained by Rush’s plant pathology program.
Soil Survey and Land Resource Workshop
Poster Competition Winners
First Place: Second Place: Third Place: Jason Ackerson
Gregory Rouze
Julieta Collazo
Aggie Turf Club is off to a strong start for
the spring semester! The club meets every
other Wednesday at 5 p.m. in Heep 440,
and we have lined up some very notable
speakers for this semester’s club meetings.
Some of the speakers that will be joining
us include Scott Abernathy (Director of
Agronomy TPC Four Seasons), Johnny
Walker (Bentwater Golf Club), David Doguet
(BladeRunner Farms), Tom Burns (Diamond
Pro, and former field manager for Ballpark in
Arlington), and Allen Reed (FC Dallas).
In January, five of our Turfgrass Science
students traveled to Denver, CO for
the Sports Turf Managers Association
Conference. In addition to educational
seminars and exposure to industry
opportunities following graduation, students
competed in the STMA Collegiate Turf
Challenge, where they placed 8th out of 32
teams (photo L to R: Andrew Keeler, Travis
Browder, Corey Diaz, Chase Brister, Rodrigo
Martinez).
More recently, ten of our students attended
the GCSAA Golf Industry Show in San
Antonio, TX. In addition to attending
educational sessions, networking, and
gaining valuable exposure to internship
and career opportunities within the industry,
students participated in the 21st Annual John
Deere Collegiate Turf Bowl Competition,
which saw teams from over 30 universities
participate. The students represented our
program well, with all 3 teams placing with
very strong finishes among the 75 teams
in this year’s competition. (L to R: Kevin
Hejl, Rodrigo Martinez, Jordan Holmes,
Garrett Parker, Jacob Boelsche, Jacob
Blalock, Jacob Doucet, Corey Diaz, Hunter
Townsend, and Michael Healey).
More information on Aggie Turf Club
happenings and upcoming events can be
found at https://turfgrassclub.tamu.edu/
of mechanical engineering techniques to help
measure and improve the structural integrity of
plants. Plant breeders use a variety of tools
to do their work, and Gomez said this type of
interdisciplinary research was a way to add
another tool to his plant breeding toolbox.
Nolan Bentley, horticulture doctoral candidate
and symposium poster presenter, said
spreading knowledge about the plant breeding
industry is important because it is a large and
varied field that has a major impact on food
production.
Graduate students had the opportunity to
showcase their work and learn about new
technologies Thursday at Texas A&M’s first
Plant Breeding Symposium.
Three graduate students had the opportunity
to give speeches on their work at the
symposium, and 28 other students displayed
their work on poster boards for attendees to
view. Francisco Gomez, plant breeding and
genetics graduate student and one of the
student speakers, said the symposium was a
great opportunity for students to learn more
about each other’s work.
“You’ve been working on your research really
hard and being able to share it with people,
getting feedback and questions is always a
good outlet,” Gomez said. “It’s important to
learn, to explain your work to others instead of
it just sitting in a box on your computer”
Gomez spoke at the symposium on his use
“It benefits all of us because we’re sharing
what’s going on, new trends, new discoveries,”
Bentley said. “What you’re seeing here is work
that may have happened as soon as a week
ago. This may be the first place you see an
idea and so if you want to jump ahead you can
come to these things and see something really
interesting that spurs you on to future ideas
and experiments.”
Nikhil Patil, molecular and environmental plant
science doctoral candidate and symposium
poster presenter, said symposiums like this
allow networking opportunities.
“You get to know a lot about the different
research that other people are doing and at
the same time showcase your own,” Patil said.
“This was the first plant breeding symposium
to be held at Texas A&M and it was nice to
be able to present research to fellow A&M
students.”
The plant breeding symposium was also
streamed live online, where it garnered
viewers from as far away as South America
and Europe. This gave speakers the chance
to answer questions not only from people
physically at the event, but also from people
watching online.
Photos courtesy of the Plant Breeding Symposium Instagram
CALENDAR
March 5
March 8
March 16-18
March 18-20
March 28
March 30-April 3
April 23-24
May 19-21
Seminar by Endang Septiningsih
Daylight Savings begins
Congressional Visits Day
Spring Break
Big Event
Ranch Management University
Bennett Trust Land Stewardship Program
Global Soil Security Symposium
SEMINAR
Thursday, March 5
10:00 A.M.
ROOM 440, HEEP CENTER
Endang Septiningsih
Senior Scientist, Molecular Genetics
Plant Breeding, Genetics, and Biotechnology Division (PBGB)
International Rice Research Institute (IRRI)
"Making an impact: applying
molecular tools to develop
flood tolerant rice"
Sponsored by the
Department of Soil & Crop Sciences
Creating a Google Scholar Profile
The Department of Soil and Crop Sciences is requesting that all faculty set-up a Google Scholar
profile in order to facilitate tracking of faculty publications. This will allow SCSC administration to
download the information from your Google Scholar account rather than having to request it directly
from each faculty member.
If you already have a Google Scholar profile that is publicly viewable, you do not need to do anything
other than continue to curate your publications. If you do not already have a Google Scholar profile,
please follow the instructions below to create your account and profile:
1.
Go to: http://scholar.google.com/
2.
Click “Sign in” in top right corner of website. If you do not already have a Google account that
you want to use, click “Create an account” at the bottom of the page.
a.
Alternatively, you can sign in with an existing Google account and skip step 3.
3.
Enter your name, username, password, etc. For your username, you can either use an existing
email address (e.g., your agnet email) or you can create a new username. Click “Next step.”
4.
Google may request verification of your email address by sending an email to the address used
for your username. If so, verify your email address by clicking on link in the Google Email Verification
to activate your account.
5.
The next option is to create a public Google+ profile. You can either personalize your profile at
this point or click “No thanks” to do this later (if desired).
6.
If you clicked “No thanks,” you should now be at the welcome screen. Click the “Get started”
button to go to the Google Scholar main screen.
7.
To set-up your profile, click the “My Citations” button at the top of the website. Enter your name
and any other information that would help identify your publications. Click “Next step.”
8.
Google Scholar will have downloaded articles that it thinks you have authored. Click “See all
articles,” select the ones that you have authored by putting a check mark in the box to the left of each
publication, and click “Add.” Then click “Next step” at the bottom right of the page.
9.
The next step is to select how Google Scholar updates your profile. You can either set-up your
profile to automatically update your publications (recommended) or you can have them emailed to
you for confirmation before updating. Once you have selected one of these options, click “Go to my
profile.”
10. At this point you can view the list of articles in your Google Scholar profile. If there are still
articles listed that you did not author, these can be removed by checking the box next to the article
and clicking delete. If you have authored papers that are not listed, these can be added by clicking
“add” and either adding them from the list of articles that were downloaded by Google Scholar or they
can be added manually (see options on left of page).
11. Once your list of articles is accurate and your profile has been personalized (if desired), make
your profile public by clicking the “Make it public” link next to your photo.
12. Every few months, check your Google Scholar profile to ensure that your list of publications is
accurate and curate them as needed.